Today from REHUNO Health we are approaching AMANI, a grief support initiative coordinated by Noelia Correa Landaluce, a therapist specialised in grief and emotional understanding.
Noelia is a woman committed to the decisions and commitments she makes and the relationships she establishes. Her contagious laughter helps to soften problems, she is grateful and knows how to see the beauty in everything. Her presence brings serenity in complicated moments, either in her silence or through her words.
She says that after many years of various types of formation, life experiences and a lot of reflection she has discovered her true purpose.
Hello Noelia, can you tell us a little bit about AMANI?
Amani is the result of my experience, of the life path I have travelled so far, and which has led me in one way or another to the no end of life process, and to the many mourning processes we have lived through during our lives. Amani includes the word amar, ama (mother in Basque), peace in Swahili… Amani is all that and more.
What does accompanying the mourning process mean to you?
To accompany in the process of mourning or in the process of dying requires profundity, interior wisdom and a lot of kindness. Accompanying involves large doses of serenity and a great deal of compassion. Accompanying requires temperance and involves focusing on the other person, placing myself at their side when they are suffering and offering them my presence and my full attention, and a fundamental and concrete help through listening and respect, regardless of my beliefs or ideas.
What attitudes or tools do you have to carry this out?
With great temperance to accompany from the heart with empathy, kindness and compassion. And with personal work on myself, to prevent my experience and my learning from interfering and being projected onto the person in mourning.
I feel that each one of us has a gift and that through a profound listening of our being, we can discover how to put it at the service of others. In my case, my interest in death and the afterlife goes back to my childhood, when I started reading books and looking for explanations for death, and without knowing it at the time, also for life.
How do you do your work?
I would like to point out that grief requires emotional management, and that the understanding of emotions and stress management in our daily life plays a fundamental role in the elaboration of a healthy grief.
In addition to individual therapies, I do trainings, workshops and talks on grief, emotional understanding and stress management for adolescents and adults. They are eminently practical, as I am a firm defender that only through experience do, we truly assimilate the knowledge that so often remains at an intellectual level; and I use innovative, original and silent technology in many of the dynamics.
Noelia Correa in one of her formations with young people
When did you start with bereavement counselling?
I like this question because it has made me reflect and take a journey into the past: when I look back, I realise that I have always been accompanying in one way or another people around me, more or less close to me, who opened up to me and showed me their suffering. In an intuitive way, and with a great natural empathy, I can say that I have been accompanying them all my life.
A little less than ten years ago, I decided to train myself in a more academic way, and although the essence of my way of accompanying has not particularly changed, it is true that I have acquired new resources and my accompaniment is wiser.
What motivates you to carry out this work of accompaniment?
I am motivated by something very profound, which I cannot explain rationally. When I accompany, no matter what, I feel that my life has meaning, I am at peace, with the certainty that I am fulfilling my vital purpose. I feel that when the time comes to leave this body, having accompanied others will allow me to do so with the peace of mind of having fulfilled my life mission. I am motivated by the serenity I feel and the joy that accompanies me.
And since you started, what have you learned from this experience of accompaniment at the no end of life and in bereavement?
I have learned so many things from all the people who have crossed my path, and to whom I am profoundly grateful, and I would like to highlight two of them:
That life is impermanence, and that uncertainty does not mean there is nothing to fear. Moreover, all human beings deserve to be able to decide how to approach life and how to face that great mystery that is our own death. For me, that is true freedom and real responsibility.
That prioritising is one of the main ingredients for living a life without regrets. In this society, with so much information, we tend to lose sight of what is really important. It is necessary to find frequent spaces or moments to reflect and put priorities in the right order.
What changes in people who can work through their grief accompanied by someone like you?
What a question, it made me smile… perhaps the people I have accompanied should answer this question.
Generally speaking, I would say that the mourning of any person accompanied by me or by specialised colleagues, and as long as the mourner is willing to transform that experience with work on their part, brings a certain serenity, new perspectives, understanding in some cases, and an acceptance that allows them to continue with their life, and most importantly, to live it.
Where, in which city and/or centres, do you carry out your project or work?
Although I am from the north of Spain, I consider myself a Malagueña by adoption, and it is mainly in Malaga where I carry out my work.
What do you think about death?
That it doesn’t exist. And I don’t think so, because if I did, my response would probably be different. It’s more a feeling, a very profound certainty that has no explanation, least of all a rational one.
What do you think about life?
Life is an opportunity chosen by our soul to bring us closer to true humanity. And we do it through a work on ourselves, which consists in becoming conscious, in taking off our rusty armour and learning from each experience, taking responsibility for everything we do and don’t do, for it to put ourselves at the service of others and, through this service, to share our essence with the world.
I am grateful with joy, every morning, for the opportunity to wake up to a new day to keep moving forward on the path I have chosen.
Thank you very much Noelia, it has been very nice to share with you this warm and meaningful talk.
Thanks to you!